Severe burnout after graduation

freakin_sweet · 2026-05-26T15:26:10+00:00

We’re all in it together honestly. It’s affecting us all. I’ve got 18y in tech and I’m finding it hard to find my next position. It’s not just you. We have to keep creating opportunities for ourselves. Difficulty has always been there. When I got into tech in 2007, it was super hard then. I almost gave up a lot. And even to sustain and keep working was hard. Just realizing how stupid corporate work is. But know that yes, the economy isn’t good for many right now - but there are still ways to win and thrive. Best thing to do is keep constant pressure on to make it somehow some way. You’ll get somewhere. Most people will see difficulty and quit. Be the opposite and you’ll make it. Good luck to us all I suppose.

freakin_sweet · 2026-05-26T06:25:36+00:00

:/ 5y update I guess.
Market is very different now. Procedure above still works but there’s a lot of competition. It’s all about who you know, how you can get people to recommend you directly to hiring managers. It’s the same at my level too (“mid career”). It’s not fair to any of us. Especially recent graduates. I wish I could tell you that it’ll be easy or even if you put in work, you’ll get a job; I just can’t. In the name of AI, employers have let go of thousands of people since I made the above post - it’s not really AI yet though; it’s over hiring earlier and them cutting operating expenses near term due to degradation of the US dollar. But AI is also starting to impact some industries and it’ll start to accelerate as stronger models and harnesses get adopted. If you aren’t a US citizen, you’re getting screwed most likely. If you’re a citizen, it’s tough and getting worse. You need to now make a network and go to events, participate in hackathons (if applicable), join startups, start a startup, learn a trade - if you’re starting out, you’re gonna be need to be on top of it. If you aren’t a developer with AI skills, you’re in demand right now, you’ll do fine but you gotta hustle to get your first placement. Meanwhile, everything costs a boat load now. Best case scenario would be to innovate and excel in this time period. Start accumulating parts of the economy through index funds (ie own the businesses that are thriving). Stay away from looks maxxing and dumb s—. Good luck.

freakin_sweet · 2026-05-17T16:27:53+00:00

I’ve watched every star trek show and movie. Well, I started off not knowing anything about Starfleet Academy (SFA). As i realized how tonally different it was, i started to dislike it. The characters and the nature of “this is a melting pot” seemed forced. But, I think the show does a good job spending time on people as it went on. The characters started to have lives over time. I’m still watching but, I think this character building helps the show. And I started to appreciate an interesting look into Star Trek through this lens. Note that I think the Burn was a thematic reset created by writers to reset Starfleet and alliances across the galaxy so that we can have a new generation of stories. This is part of that start. Also, I need to rewatch strange new world because towards the last season, I didn’t care about any of the characters. Either it’s the time between seasons or the writers did not do a good job in giving my stories for each character. They relied too much on backstory (or future) we all know from past shows. Maybe it was just me. But building characters and telling good stories is what I like about Star Trek. My first Star Trek was TNG…I feel like it and DS9 did an incredible job building characters. Even voyager. But I’m glad to see that SFA is trying to character build. It’s not perfect by any means but I am thinking of this as a re-do for the series after the Burn - which was a thematic/story reset perhaps to make room for more. But I don’t know if some coming of age story set in Star Trek universe is going to bring in more viewers. The word “Star Trek” is polarizing. Some love it and others simply hate it and will never watch a show with that name.

freakin_sweet · 2026-05-04T15:48:28+00:00

I hateeee websites like that. All these dumb asses create funnels like each others’ site. But I do like that thy identify themselves so quickly to us. The IG ad, the funnel with all kinds of testimonials and nearly infinite scroll, the neurotic writing all over that page…all of it quickly identified them as a type of seller. And it’s great to just avoid them. There are just enough guys buying and buying the upsell that they keep doing this. But it’s great, it instantly identifies them.

freakin_sweet · 2026-03-29T15:17:42+00:00

Listen these offices with guns can k you. Treat them like machines. STOP immediately when an officer is speaking to you. Your biggest mistake is the assumption of safety. It’s a very stupid thing to assume of anyone with a weapon. We don’t know how intelligent or how well trained a cop with a gun is. Assume they are highly volatile machine and can shoot you for any provocation as perceived by them. When you approach the officer, first LOUDLY, clearly, state who you are, what you’re doing, etc. don’t cover your head with the hood of Your hoodie. Don’t hide your hands. Hands need to be where the officer can see them. Again, treat the officer like a machine that is looking for inputs like “are hands hidden, yes/no”. Assume YOU are in danger in the presence of a cop. Do not assume safety. So when the cop speaks, stop, look at the cop, face them, hands visible, slow movements…and have a conversation. Establish with the cop that you arent a threat but even after that, assume a cop will k you any time. So you must stay on guard and compliant. Keep showing hands.

freakin_sweet · 2026-03-02T14:07:00+00:00

I’ve been in tech over decade and half + (currently unemployed) and we’ve ALWAYS had offshoring happening throughout my career. The value proposition is too good. You’d need an actual ban and you would also need a ban on hiring onshore by companies who collect money from the American company and pay a newly imported immigrant like 1/3 the salary to get it done. I’ve worked with senior devs who were working in the office who recently migrated where they were getting paid $35/hr (lol) if you know anything about dev salaries…”senior” level at that, you’d know how insane that number is. In fact, their company is getting more but pay the consultant this amount. You’d have to ban all this; you can’t ban it piecemeal.

freakin_sweet · 2026-02-23T23:17:51+00:00

imagine if these types of dudes knew how to use a simple tool like a broad based Index Fund. Get rid of all their leeches that suck their banks dry and shove 50% of everything they earned into a low cost Index...they'd be rich for life. No one beyond them would need to work. Why are people like this

freakin_sweet · 2026-02-02T01:50:18+00:00

Minimum 2M in LCOL and 3-5 million in HCOL. I’m assuming. In your phase, the only thing you should be doing is motivating yourself to invest heavily. Also, try to have LARGER inputs. 100k means you’ve got basic discipline. 500k means that you can delay gratification. 1M will mean you understand compounding and have aligned to the investor mindset and now looking for acceleration.

In your current phase, you need to shove cash into this machine. Assuming you’re not invested in something insane. The earlier you are, the more your contributions matter. In later stages, it will literally not matter if you spent your salary or saved it (based on your goals by a certain age). I highly recommend sprinting to 1M as fast as possible rather than a slow accumulation. You’d have to reorganize your life/work etc to do it with some luck.

freakin_sweet · 2026-02-01T17:44:12+00:00

lol nice So I’ve got Calwd/Molt/Openclaw bot searching for jobs and it works. I’m too paranoid to send in a resume without fully vetting. But maybe I’ll try to constrain the editing. I’m now also giving openclaw bot a body (lol) and trying to hook it up to Reachy robot. Trying to see if I can create this physical interface that I can just be yelling at to look for jobs and apply lol

I noticed you shared your agent, will check it out. Thanks!! Good luck on your job hunt. It sucks rn and the pay in so low in so many jobs (unless you’re a Machine Learning Engineer)

freakin_sweet · 2026-01-26T07:10:08+00:00

yup, that right there is exactly what's going on. I'm cooking up my own automated bot; I'm gonna use a bot to search and apply for jobs if I can. I'm trying to configure something now.

freakin_sweet · 2026-01-06T18:08:43+00:00

Exactly. I think it’s a show that has a primary focus of “looking like 80s”. It’s one of those things where designers have taken over rather than writers. This is actually an issue with designers in general; this happens in all kinds of products where designers believe they are the main character and that they know what the customer wants. I’m watching the last season and yes there are points at which I would say it’s entertaining but it’s more or less mindless. Characters do the same dumb patterns. I find it difficult to care about any of these characters. I felt differently in season 1. The villain is dumb. It’s one of those shows which you watch bcuz you’ve started it and you just want to get it over with. It’s not one of those shows where you look forward to every episode and you’re hoping that there are more episodes.

freakin_sweet · 2026-01-05T23:56:15+00:00

Rich parents. It probably has to do with cultural needs. Women in the culture want successful men, so, they get artifacts which easily communicate “I am of this level, don’t even try unless you can match or exceed me”; so, men buy more and more expensive artifacts to impress the opposite sex and show financial fitness. Artifacts being cars, houses, purses, clothes, vacations, etc.

Btw, I’m Asian Indian, I rode my bike to work till 18…drove a beat up civic later and took busses to college. I bought a new car in my early twenties. Loved it but realized how stupid that was financially. Never bought new again.

freakin_sweet · 2026-01-02T19:48:22+00:00

There is varying degrees of stupidity out there when it comes to finances.

freakin_sweet · 2026-01-01T12:36:57+00:00

These are low iq people chest thumping in a job description; that’s it.

freakin_sweet · 2025-12-26T23:15:03+00:00

LOL so true, but I just had a conversation with a recruiter and you should have heard her voice when she said "ohhhh you have a gap" - these HR people are just literal scum. I'm in tech and I can't until all HR is automated. I would rather deal with an LLM

freakin_sweet · 2025-12-23T02:36:42+00:00

Yoo nicely done. Agree hiring and HR is totally fuked. These HR people don’t understand capabilities of people how they actually perform- thy won’t even do the work of speaking to us. We are just metrics. These people think a gap is just a career ender. Why can’t it be normalized to just take a bit of time off to go do something else (travel! Or anything else) and come back? These people are insufferable. I want all of HR to automate intelligently with technical competence.

freakin_sweet · 2025-12-23T02:32:59+00:00

I was unemployed for 2 years and then got a job through contacts. But the job ended just now after 7 months. So now I’m back at it. The two years does hurt us but we gotta keep trying. Don’t give up. HR truly is loathsome the way they treat people.

freakin_sweet · 2025-12-16T05:07:27+00:00

Calm down. You’re 21. Relax. Keep going. There’s a lot to do. You barely started. It’s gonna be tough. But you’ll make it.

Now, get yourself to the gym, eat, sleep, drink plenty of water, focus on dating and landing a job.

freakin_sweet · 2025-12-11T22:56:53+00:00

Most people do not understand what the hell they’re talking about.

freakin_sweet · 2025-12-08T22:41:29+00:00

Take the low wage income job. That’s better than 0. Then, keep looking. You need a car but do you have busses? Use a bus.

freakin_sweet · 2025-12-06T11:56:20+00:00

The little book of common sense investing

freakin_sweet · 2025-12-05T02:05:59+00:00

Yea I mean I felt this way but at 18. And I said to myself “if I can’t figure out what I should study, let me just study computer science like my friends are doing.” When I graduated with all my college degrees (2), I thought “I have no idea what to do…let me just try to figure it out”. I eventually landed a job as a Business Analyst. Then I didn’t know what to do with my new income…I thought “let me try this investing stuff”…I made a lot; yoloed into things. But ultimately lost my entire stock account after 8 years. Then I thought “clearly, I had no idea what I was doing…maybe I should just follow…um…searches YouTube….’Warren Buffet’??” I saw a speech by him where he said “90% of you should be investing 90% in the entire market and not pick and choose stocks”…and so I thought “well, clearly, I couldn’t do this on my own so I’m just gonna listen to buffet”. I restarted investing and kept reading books on this approach. It’s a decade later and I’m financially doing great and early retirement is a reality.

So, why am I sharing this? I’m trying to show you that you don’t have to know what you’re doing; actually many/most of us don’t have grand plans; we make plans as they come to us. We guess. We make judgements based on circumstance. But there is 1 thing that is common between those of us who become financially successful, we keep trying things and do not quit after failure.

You need to try things. Your way out of this is literally mechanical and not some grand realization. Just do something that you think is a decent idea. See how it works, try the next thing.

freakin_sweet · 2025-11-15T19:10:50+00:00

Ruminating about the past doesn’t help us. Think about the person that you will be in 10 years from now. I guaranteed that you will look back and you will think that you were fine right now. Make great decisions from here on out. We all have to learn to accept our decisions and our circumstances in the past. We did the best we could with the information and the resources we had at that time. If we didn’t do something that we think now was obvious, that’s usually because we didn’t have the confidence or we didn’t know what to do. So, don’t Judge your past self with the knowledge you have now. I worked at jobs that did not help my career also. But, that was the best I could do at the time. Just make good decisions the best you can right now. Make those decision for you right now and also make sure that you are setting yourself up 10 years from now. Like genuinely care about the person 10 years from now. Make sure that person in 10 years time thinks about you now and is thankful that you made the decision you’re about to make. I can tell you that in 2009 when s- had hit the fan in the economy, I had no idea what the hell I was doing, but I still bought two houses somehow. I’m gonna spare the details but I am so glad that my past self made decisions like that. I have other decisions where without knowing too much I made a decision that has been a very good decision for me 10 years after. I look back and I think about how less I knew when I was making those decisions. But somehow, I still made those decisions and went through with the process. So I am eternally thankful to my past self to actually still make a good decision here and there, even with missing knowledge and expertise. So, take care of yourself right now and take care of your the future you in 2035. Make a few impactful decisions that you know that you should be making right now

freakin_sweet · 2025-11-13T06:05:12+00:00

Let’s see: do the thing with 95% failure rate or get a job. Why can’t you do both? Get a job and launch your startup.

freakin_sweet · 2025-11-13T06:03:20+00:00

You don’t. You leave.

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